crowd out all the other kinds of spending we need for the country, in defense and infrastructure and education. we need some rule changes to right size. >> what are you recommending, glenn? if you could get in on that conversation with the speaker and the president, what would you say? >> i think for our next year conversation, we need a budget rule that says, look, when we change our liabilities in social security and medicare, we have to ask the congress to pay for them. they either have to raise taxes or cut some other spending. that forces the congress to think about the mix between taxes, spending outside of the entitlements and spending on the entitlements. that's just not something our framers thought about. we didn't have a welfare state in those days. >> glenn, are you all right? >> i'm fine. >> apologize for that. >> that's okay. >> you never know what's going to happen. >> that's what happens when you criticize the welfare states. >> glenn, another big conversation we need to have as a nation is what percentage of gdp should that spending be? what has it been in the past? is there s